The collar would be more useful as a rotation tool than as a weight distribution tool. And keep in mind, shortly there will no doubt be 3rd party collars for a fraction of the price. The fact that Nikon charges $230+ for this piece of plastic is asinine! After all, it's not like it's a US government toilet Any manufacturers out there that could speak to the cost of something like this? Can't be more than $20, even using the highest quality materials and precision tooling, which Nikon clearly has the ability and know how to do.

By the time I saw this lens, I was almost sad I bought Canon with lenses... reason I have Canon bodies is because of the cheap 70-200 f/4L (which costs around $600 here). Now this Nikon equivalent, but fortunately, it's priced quite a bit higher so I would not have bought it.Seems to be a great lens though.

A tidbit from one of the tests I'll add in the full review:Focus-speed is around 0.6 sec from infinity to 1.4m, which is pretty fast. In fact this lens is as fast as its bigger brother, the AF-S 70-200/2.8G VR II.Bravo!

Yeah, that was pretty stressful as the weather was almost always unfriendly over 4 weeks with little sun and gusty winds, snow, rain, etc. that I had to visit the "Unremarkables" four times to get good (enough) shots.I also had problems with shake on my tripod as the wind was pulling at the rather longish lens(es) - and have now bought a new Manfrotto/Bogen 545B Pro Heavy-Duty Aluminum Video tripod: their dual-leg structure is much more rigid than my old Manfrotto 055.And I had to do everything in triple for my big up-and-coming shootout: the Nikon AF-S 70-200/4.0G VR, the Nikon AF-S 70-200/2.8G VR, and the the Sigma HSM 70-200/2.8 OS....but who am I to complain -----Here's another interesting pair of shots with which I tried to test background- and foreground-Bokeh:

(You can the full-res images by clicking through those pictures above)

You can make a lot of observations with these two simple shots:1. the cat's-eye effect is setting in pretty fast (I'd say 1/3 from the image center already).2. The light-blobs have a slight outlining.3. Foreground- and background-Bokeh are almost equally strong.

The respective shots for the Sigma 70-200/2.8 at f4 are here and there.And for the Nikon 70-200/2.8 at f4 they are here and there.The respective shots at f2.8 can also be visited in the respective sets.

Thomas,Would love to see a comparison review of the older, similar priced, Nikon 80 -200 mm f/2.8 AF against new Nikon 70-200 f/4.0 AFS G VRiii. I think a lot of users are like me who are considering these 2 similarly priced Nikon pro zoom.Good review. A more real world test than the DXOmark test published recently.

Hello film_guy, and welcome to the friendly Camera Labs forum!To enjoy your stay here please have a look at the house-rules!----As to your request: I'd love to do a lot more testing but this comparison doesn't fit into my schedule.But from what I knwo about the older 70/80-200/2.8 zooms from other tests there is optically only one that could perhaps compete: The 80-200/2.8 AF-S version which is no longer in production. But even in that case I would hesitate to give up the dual benefits of less weight and a very good image stabilization for a 1 stop larger max aperture. But that is only my personal opinion.

Hello VMark, and welcome to the friendly Camera Labs forum!To enjoy your stay here please have a look at the house-rules!----As to the 70-200mm Shootout: We're hoping to get a sample of the brand-spanking-new Tamron 70-200/2.8 VC (for Nikon-mount) soon and include this new lens in the shootout.Until then I'm afraid you have to use the three single reviews to make the comparisons on your own - or just wait a bit...

Thomas, I was wondering (as it is not stated on Nikon's website as I can find) but is the weight of the 70-200/2.8 VR II including, or excluding the collar? Because I can imagine a part of almost double the weight might be in the collar?

Wout: The collar is not removable from the Nikon AF-S 70-200/2.8G VR II. Removable is only a small part of the "foot" of the collar that weighs a mere 80g. The lens including the foot and the shade but w/o caps weighs 1580g (measured on my scale) so w/o foot it is at 1500g.Hope that helps.

Sure that helps, thanks for the answer. The f/4.0 sounds a lot more interesting in that perspective, I shoot a lot (almost exclusively) handheld so not having to carry the collar is a great advantage in my eyes.

EDIT: I have found the weight of the collar to the f/4.0 is ca. 157 grams, which is some good weight to spare to this lens